r.s. says that i may have stumbled upon a hitherto un-noted form of dysgenesis. on the other hand, r.s. was drunk when he said so (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), so maybe i didn’t. (~_^)

but, just in case, here’s the scenario:

1) gender imbalance in population: more men than women.

2) gender imbalance greatest in upper classes, the members of which have, presumably, a higher iq than average (i.e. that’s why they’re in the upper classes).

3) to quote r.s.: “Because of the ‘one father one mother’ principle – the two sexes’ genes must be very near equally represented in the next generation – usually when a pop is 66% male and 33% female the females have ~2x the fitness of the males. Because in every generation, men /collectively/ have x1 offspring and women also collectively have x1 offspring. Less women than men means more offspring for women per capita, than for men.“

4) put numbers 2 & 3 together, and you should get a dysgenic situation, no? to quote me: “in india, however it is the well-off that are aborting girls more than boys. that can’t be good. sounds potentially dysgenic (since poorer women will be contributing more children per capita in the next generation).”

if you’re a population geneticist and that sounds right to you, tell all your friends! if it doesn’t sound right, well, never mind.

in any case, maybe the male:female numbers in a human population would never be “off” enough for this to have an effect. then again, things ain’t great in china and india.